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The funny thing is, none of this is about me. And yet, it’s all about the sense of abandonment I feel. Maybe it will all work out. I hope so, because there’s nothing I can do but try to get through it the best I can.
The first thing you need to know is that Julie is gone. She said she wants nothing to do with the company any more, because she’s not able to work without being constantly thwarted and continually denigrated. In spite of this, she was willing to stay anyway, to look after the Boss during his long recovery period, but only under one condition. That condition was a deal breaker.
She said that if she were going to live with him and take care of him, she would make the care decisions, including where they would live. His response was that nobody other than himself was going to make decisions affecting his life. At first I thought they would be able to work something out, but last Wednesday, after she got him admitted to the hospital for his latest surgery, she packed her things and left town.
So now we are without Paul, who was running the kennel, and Julie, who was helping me run the company. Paul is in poor health and ready to retire anyway, and he has a place to go, so it was sort of inevitable that we would have to find a way to replace him eventually.
In Julie’s case, she was an invaluable asset to the company, and especially to me. She did the things I don’t like to do. She made the phone calls and handled the government agencies and filled in the endless, tedious forms that keep us in compliance with all the regulations a construction company has to endure. The Boss, who is still groggy and not home from the hospital yet, thinks he can do some of it and hire someone to do the rest. He assures me that my job won’t get any more difficult. It’s nice of him to say that, but I don’t believe it.
Every night, as I try to get to sleep, I think of one more thing I’m going to have to do as a result of this new circumstance. I try to tell myself that I’ll find a way to get it done, or that we’ll get someone more suited to doing it, and my life will go on as it’s been for the last few years. Because, honestly, my life has been pretty good, and that’s what I don’t want to change. That’s what I’m afraid of. That’s why I’m sort of hating the world and dreading the future lately. That’s why I’m not sleeping much.
The Boss’s ex-wife drove up Thursday to look after him. She won’t have anything to do with Julie, and Julie was gone by the time she arrived. She’s not in the best of physical health, either, and she has three daughters and a dozen or so grandchildren scattered up and down the California coast. All of them depend on her to be there when they need her, and it’s the life she wants, rather than caring for her ex-husband for several months (although she has offered to let him live in her house, a proposal he rejected without much thought).
I don’t know who’s going to look after him, or how much he’s going to be able to work, or how much more influence Tim is going to have in Julie’s absence, or how long this is all going to drag on. I used to think a year or two ahead and take comfort in the knowledge that I’d be safe and secure in the same house, doing the same job. I’m not much for adventure, and I hate change. |
